Category Archives: LGBTQ Shenanigans

Gay stuff. Rights and such.

Splitting The Coalition: The Game Plan

It’s a NOM bombshell: splitting the “blacks and gays” was the plan all along.

I got some push back last week when I laid out the case that African-Americans were unfairly being singled out for being anti-gay bigots and for being responsible for passing Prop 8.  Turns out that the notion of trying to split African-Americans and black pastors and chuch-goers especially from the LBGT community is literally in playbook for the actual bigots at NOM.

Late yesterday, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights group, obtained “internal NOM documents” that were part of an ongoing investigation by the State of Maine into financial activities by the organization. NOM apparently fought hard to keep those documents sealed, and in reading portions of one of the documents (a 34-page document entitled “The National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle”) we understand why. Not only has this organization used ham-fisted approaches to attack the LGBT community, but there’s textual evidence that they aren’t afraid to use a ham-fisted approach to court black and Latino communities.

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Splitting The Coalition: Fractured Facts On Blacks And Same-Sex Marriage

Black voters are not the problem here, folks.

“Blacks and Latinos killed same-sex marriage in California” is one of the nastiest lies out of 2008, and it’s been held against those groups by some in the left now for years.  It’s still being held against blacks in particular when it comes to President Obama’s “refusal” to fully embrace same-sex marriage as a right.  It’s one of the most egregious wedges being driven into the Obama coalition, and the mistruths surrounding that are still on display today, as National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar goes after the President’s “evolution” by saying “black voters won’t support him” is the reason he won’t come out for same-sex marriage.  This black voter disagrees.

Public opinion on gay marriage is pretty straightforward.  There’s a huge generational divide – with older voters solidly opposed, and younger voters solidly supportive.  Over time, support for gay marriage should increase.  And if Obama came out in support of gay marriage, he would probably excite and inspire many college-aged Democrats to show up at the polls and support him — not to mention winning back some socially-moderate independents who have been disenchanted with the president over the economy.

But college-aged voters are only part of the president’s coalition.  The bigger element consists of African-American voters, who are solidly opposed to gay marriage. California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage passed in 2008 thanks to overwhelming black support; 70 percent backed it, according to exit polls.  Recent gay marriage legislation in Maryland drew opposition from leading Democratic African-American legislators in the state.  The same ministers organizing get-out-the-vote efforts in black churches for Obama are also railing against gay marriage.
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Bush-Appointed Judge Finds DOMA Unconstitutional! Huzzah!

Again with the arc of justice.

 This afternoon, Bush appointee Judge Jeffrey White (Northern District of California) struck down DOMA as unconstitutional under the equal protection clause. (You can read the opinion here.  Read it.  It’s not every day that a court order cites a case from 1896!)

Noting that neither the Ninth Circuit nor the Supreme Court has determined what level of scrutiny should apply, the court determined that heightened scrutiny1 should apply to classifications based on sexual orientation, citing the following four factors: Continue reading

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Shorter Indiana Rep. Bob Morris (R-Dipshit): Girl Scouts Turn Girls into Whores and Lesbians

First they came for the thin mints…

This is preposterous:

INDIANAPOLIS – A Fort Wayne lawmaker’s rant against the Girl Scouts went viral Monday after he called them a “radicalized organization” that supports abortion and promotes “homosexual lifestyles.

Rep. Bob Morris, R-Fort Wayne, sent a letter to Indiana House Republicans on Saturday explaining why he was the only member in the chamber not to sign onto a resolution last week celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts. Continue reading

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Skinhead Sheriff Paul Babeu: Open the Danged Closet

Oops! Here we go again…

And now we know.

Rising Republican star and well-known border hawk Sheriff Paul Babeu, who’s now running for Congress in Arizona, was hit Friday night with bombshell accusations from a Mexican immigrant who said he dated the sheriff for years and was threatened with deportation if he ever told anyone about their romance.

The Phoenix New Times newspaper broke the story on its website in a piece written by veteran journalist Monica Alonzo. The accusations came complete with text messages said to be between the two men as well as compromising photos purportedly of Babeu that are reminiscent of recent sex scandals that ended the careers of Congressmen Anthony Weiner and Chris Lee.  Continue reading

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The Great Golden State Prop 8 No Hate Debate

The 9th Circuit weighs in on the way to Washington.

As ABL pointed out earlier today, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit struck down California’s Prop 8 ban on gay marriage today, in a ruling that’s expected to almost immediately be appealed to the US Supreme Court.  Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog has a pretty good summary of the ruling.  For the most part, everything the lower courts decided were upheld by this decision:

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Ninth Circuit Rules that Prop 8 is Unconstitutional!

Fuck Yeah!

A federal appeals court in California has upheld a lower court’s ruling that Proposition 8, the state’s ban on gay marriage, is unconstitutional.

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Dear Asian-Americans: I am so sorry that I didn’t warn you about the GOP.

Or: The GOP – they really don’t seem to like much of anybody!

Last week, I wrote a post asking the GOP to just shut up about black people, a post which got a surprising amount of attention across the web.

In the aftermath of that, I found myself wondering: “Huh. Who is the GOP going to demonize and belittle next in this election cycle?”

And I knew: Asian-Americans. A post began to form itself in my head, one I intended to write sometime this week.

I mean, they’ve demonized and belittled gay people already:

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Tennessee Restaurant Refuses to Serve Anti-Gay State Senator Stacey Campfield; Campfield Absurdly Indignant About It

WTF.  No, seriously.  WTF.

Here’s some news that will simultaneously tickle your schadenfreude bone and make you weep for humanity.

Warning: it’s mostly going to be the “weep for humanity” thing:

Martha Boggs, owner of the Bistro at the Bijou, says she ordered state Sen. Stacey Campfield out of her Gay Street restaurant and banned him from brunch Sunday in disgust over his recent remarks about gays and the origin of the AIDS virus. [You really must read this news article in order to wrap your mind around the sheer bigotry and stupidity that Senator Campfield promotes. -ed.]

“When I saw him at the front door, I told him to leave,” Boggs said Monday. “It’s just my way to show support for the gay community and stand up to somebody I think is a bully. He’s really gone from being stupid to dangerous. I think he needs to know what it feels like to be discriminated against.”

Campfield responded with a blog post comparing himself to Jesus Christ and to the civil-rights demonstrators of the 1960s.

Campfield’s blog post illustrates the sheer magnitude of bigoted fuckery we’re dealing with when it comes to these right-wing nutbags. I’m reposting Campfield’s nonsense in full because — because — well — just read it:

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